When I’m in my feels I write, it gives me something productive to do instead of just cry.
Over the last 2 years we’ve done a lot of waving and hugging bye and it still hasn’t gotten any easier, and nothing prepares you.
Nothing really prepares you for the vacancy at home, For waking up to an empty house and being all alone.
The missing sound of tiny feet and all the chatter being gone. Driving away after holidays with empty seats just feels wrong.
Nothing prepares you for leaving them behind, or watching them drive out the driveway to go back to their home, or the feeling that poisons that last day together knowing tomorrow you’ll wake up empty and alone.
Nothing prepares you for the tightness in your chest and the invisible hand around your neck. Just when you think you’ve got the battle won and you can make it, the memories flood back!
The tears cloud your vision at random times in the day, and the pain that comes with missing them dulls but never goes away. It’s not as though they’re completely gone, you’ll see them again, you’ll arrange vacations and visits and burn up the FaceTime calls until you’re back together with them.
The time is never long enough, you hate for them to leave. No one really prepares you for your bigs to grow up or the way it makes you grieve. When the first ones out you begin to grieve the others if they’re close, even though they’re still at home you know all of them leaving will hurt the most. You learn to treasure the moments and the time that you have left, you hold them a little tighter and hug a little longer and don’t explain your eyes when they randomly become wet. Nothing can prepare you for the way letting them grow up feels, even though you know it’s the right way you, just long for those big sit down family meals.
The laughter around the table now is a balm that heals your soul, and the pile of shoes and chaos that maybe used to bother you is let go!
Nothing really prepares you when all of you grow old, maybe something will come along and ease the ache someday like a grand baby to hold.
At this point the world knows I have a 60 pound escape artist of a tortoise! He’s escaped at our home in Texas and he’s escaped at our home in Virginia. The first time he escaped it was completely my fault, I left the gates open! Future escapes have been because he’s strong, or major rain events have caused deterioration to his pen, or something on his pen broke or wore out like this last time. Sometimes it takes us a bit to figure out what we need to fix. As a result he’s now outfitted with a tracker!
There’s always tears and heartache when I lose Franklin. This time was no different. He was gone for 6 days and I cried every one of them. I searched every single day even in the rain knowing the weather was too cool in the evenings for him to go too far or move too much. He was ultimately found less than a half mile from the house by the sweetest girls who were just as elated at having found him an reunited him with us as we were that they found him and he was safe and sound.
I realized while taking steps to ensure we don’t have to go through this heartache again that there was something far more beautiful that has happened each time Frankie has been found.
In our community in Texas and in our community here in Virginia when the trumpet blast was sounded via social media, word of mouth, and text or phone calls, the community sprung into action to help us. When people you don’t know, have never met, and maybe never will, take the time to not only share your post, but to physically go out and walk the neighborhood, to message or comment words of encouragement and let you know they’re praying it ads dimension to the relief of finding Frankie. This is the beauty of community! God created us in His image which includes living in relationship and community together with Him but also with each other.
Finding Frankie in Texas and Virginia has come with its beauty and relief but seeing communities come together to support us in both of those places has been so much more beautiful. Honestly, we were longing for the same type of connection to our new community here in Virginia that we have in Texas. Finding Frankie helped us to see the beauty of this precious community and see with new eyes the joy of connecting to others in it.
I can only imagine what life was like in the early church in Acts chapter 2 as they daily met together and broke bread in their homes and shared their meals and “God added daily to their numbers those who were being saved!” Acts 2:47
Community, connection, unity is important, Paul writes about having the same mind in Philippians 2 loving one another and being united in spirit intent on one purpose. Specifically, he even noted to consider others interests as important as your own.
Our community considered my interests in Finding Frankie. They demonstrated love to us and we are so grateful to be a part of them, but also to see God’s word more clearly as we think about living in community and being united in one spirit intent on furthering the gospel.
This may mean sacrificing my time, my wants, my preferences so that someone else will come to know Jesus as Savior and King. As I reflect on how our community responded in love to help us find Frankie, I also reflect on God’s word and purpose for our lives and the tenacity with which he leaves the 99 to find the one lost (Matt 18 and Luke 15) and hope that we demonstrate that same zeal for sharing the gospel with the lost!
Long time no type. Well, it hasn’t really been that long but much longer than normal. Why? I’ve been in a funk, not a writing funk, a “what do I do with myself funk”. It’s crazy how this happens and the things that seem to pull me out of them. Almost every time, it’s digging into God’s word, and connection. This time is no different. Gracie is finishing up 2 classes before she gets a spring break and starts two more. She’s taking a theology class and one of her assignments was to write an essay on a term associated with the doctrine of salvation. She was struggling a little to understand why defining terms such as adoption, conversion, regeneration, redemption, reconciliation, justification, election, sanctification, or glorification were important if you understood the big picture. We broke it down and began to talk it out anyway.
One of the things we practiced when the kids were younger before they started dual credit classes was what we called “fast writing story starts.” Sometimes we would take a random prompt and be given 30 minutes to write a story or part of a story that started with that prompt. Other times we did a 30 minute who, what, where, when, why on a particular person or event. I usually participated in these too and we read them out loud to each other afterwards. She chose the word justification, and we worked together to dig it out of Scripture and see at what point someone is justified in Christ.
As Grace rightly pointed out, justification isn’t a new concept, people have been justifying their actions for centuries, usually it’s when they have done something they weren’t supposed to do and they want to rationalize it to make the actions appear, right or justified, in right alignment with something……and cue fast writing story start on justification!
It is difficult to single out one aspect of the doctrine of salvation and analyze it’s relationship to sin and to a believer’s personal life. Perhaps one of the most interesting and visually appealing aspects of salvation is that of justification. A quick google search of the word justification reveals the definition to be “the action of showing something to be right or reasonable,” “good reason that something exists or has been done”, theologically speaking, “the action of declaring or making righteous in the sight of God,” or when typing a document, “the action of justifying a line of type or piece of text.” The last one paints the best picture although it’s difficult to understand since the word being defined is used in the definition. Simply put, justification is to put into right or correct alignment. Sin in the lives of humanity takes humans out of correct alignment with God the Father. Similar to beginning a paper with the heading in the center of the paper and then continuing to type the body of the paper while still aligned in the center. The body of a paper belongs on the left side of the paper and is out of alignment. When the left alignment or justification tab is selected the body of the paper is put into proper alignment.
Concerning salvation, the cause of our improper alignment is sin.
Romans 3:21-26, “21 But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, 22 but it is the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in God’s merciful restraint He let the sins previously committed go unpunished; 26 for the demonstration, that is, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”
Romans 3:21-26 NASB
Jesus is the “control “a” (select all) control “L” (left align or justify) buttons of our life! The only thing that will align us rightly is repentance, which includes expressing sorrow over sin, turning from sin, and turning to God and faith in Jesus as Savior and Lord. Both of the words Savior and Lord need unpacking as well however, we will stick with justification. A wage is given as payment for sin, according to Romans 6:23, this wage is spiritual death. When repentance and faith in Jesus as the atoning sacrifice for that sin occurs, Jesus pays with His death as the only worthy, sinless sacrifice and we are then justified (aligned rightly) with God the Father because of Jesus. He pays your tab!
Galatians 2:16 states, “16 nevertheless, knowing that a person is not justified by works of the Law but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the Law; since by works of the Law no flesh will be justified.”
Galatians 2:16 NASB
Humanity cannot align itself rightly with God the Father. Humans cannot work for their salvation. The only way to be justified is by faith in Jesus. Ephesians 2:8-9 reiterates this same theological concept that we are saved by faith through grace not of our own works.
As a believer, while I am now aligned rightly with the Father through Jesus and sealed with the deposit of the Holy Spirit (Eph 1:13-14), I still am in need of sanctification, a process in which I become more and more like Christ throughout my life as a result of making decisions that reflect correct alignment with God. This means there are things I do and don’t participate in, things I do say and things I do not say regardless of where I am work, home, school, grocery store etc. as a result of my desire to follow Jesus’ teachings and become more Christ like. Sanctification is a process that will continue until my physical death or Jesus comes back as Philippians 1:6 indicates.
Justification is immediate when I repent and believe and occurs at the moment of Salvation “for if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; 10 for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.” (Romans 10:9-10) It is at that moment a person becomes a believer and is put into correct alignment, justified, and righteous.
ANNNND TIME! I love how connection to and with others, especially studying the word of God together always aligns my thoughts rightly and untethers me from whatever funk I’m in! It’s almost as if we were created to live in relationship/community with one another (she typed sarcastically), because we were absolutely created this way!
So last blog I inundated ya’ll with a ton of Scripture and only part of a conversation Gracie and I had had, and not much context into the Scripture passage…believe it or not I could have written even more on that…but then it would have turned into WAY more than a blog…I won’t do that today! But, today’s blog is based on conversation too, several of them actually.
Often, I get in my own head, I’m an overthinker, that song that says, “it’s me, hi, I’m the problem it’s me” is so accurate when it comes to the source of my anxiety and stress. And before ya’ll get triggered, yes, I KNOW the Bible says to “not be anxious about anything but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”(Phil 4:6) I’m working on it ya’ll, I promise! If you deal with this mess, you know that you KNOW you have blessings and logically you can see truth and reason, but you have to hitch those feelings to your engine of obedience and fight through and force them to follow to get the train down the track because they just don’t want to get on board sometimes.
That’s exactly what this post is about actually, the “if you deal with this too.” One of the most eye-opening weeks I have had recently was joining my hubby on a work trip and getting to have lunch and adventure with several of the wives of his teammates. Every single one of them is in my position now or has gone through it recently. They understand the struggles because they’ve been through them. As we sat there and shared with one another and were honest, and vulnerable with each other I began to feel less alone and definitely like I had a support system of ladies who understood me. We kept saying, GURL ME TOO!
I had a similar conversation with friend this morning, the Lord had laid her on my heart on several occasions, so I just decided to text her and basically says, “hey gurl hey, you ok?” I mean that isn’t exactly how the conversation went down and I actually stopped and prayed for her and prayed for my reaching out to her but as we sat there and visited through text back and forth and discussed some of our struggles, we had a “me too” moment. We both felt seen and heard and were able to encourage one another and not feel like we were on islands by ourselves. Sometimes you just have to row on over to your friend’s island and see what they have going on that you can get into with them or help them with! Truthfully, its biblical. We weren’t meant to do all of this alone. In fact, alone is the place where you’re easiest to pick off, just like those animals the lions, hyenas, and leopards go after. They don’t get the ones in the middle of the group, they get the isolated ones. We truly are better together.
My friend this morning reminded me of a Harry Potter quote that I had just watched, she said it’s just like when Luna Lovegood tells Harry, “Well if I were “You-Know-Who,” I’d want you to feel cut off from everyone else, because if it’s just you alone, you’re not as much of a threat.” Ummm exactly, this is exactly the kind of tactic the devil will employ! What does God’s word say?
This is exactly what groups like MOPS (mothers of preschoolers) is about. I remember being a young mother of young children and feeling so alone and like I was the only one struggling with all the things I was. I spoke at a MOPS meeting before, but my message wasn’t the beauty of MOPS, I don’t know if I added any real value at all, the beauty of that meeting was seeing all of those mothers leaning into each other and having, GURL ME TOO, moments and leaning into the Lord and encouraging one another.
I was thumbing through Charlie Mackesy’s book, “The boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse” this morning. They had some, girl me too, moments too. One of which I’ll share from the book below.
When we open up to each other and get vulnerable and honest with each other, we connect and are able to share each other’s loads and not feel alone.
As a society we have incorrectly associated vulnerability as a weakness. Quite the opposite is true, Brene Brown has some of the best dialogue I’ve seen when it comes to being vulnerable, here’s a snapshot of some of her quotes,
In order to have “gurl me too” moments and to truly connect with each other and support each other we have to untether from vulnerability as a weakness and have the courage to be vulnerable with each other. Granted, some measure of consideration into wise counsel should be given, especially given the nature about what you are about to divulge. But find your people and jump into the trench with them. Be an encouragement to them and let them know they are not alone, let them encourage you! When we recognize we are all broken crayons that can still color, we acknowledge our brokenness and our weaknesses and let God do what only he can do! God’s grace is sufficient for you, his strength (which is infinite) is made perfect in weakness. (2 Corinth 12:9) It takes bringing your broken pieces to the Lord and coloring with them anyway so he can oversee the masterpiece that’s the big picture of what all those broken pieces are coloring together!
Raychel Writes 